Evil Dead: The Series 17: "Playing With Fire"
by OmarSnake
Summary: More on Gretchen...


"Evil Dead: The Series" Episode 17  
  
"Playing With Fire"  
  
By: OmarSnake  
  
Now, life's just not fair sometimes.  
  
If I were interested in water, no one would give me any grief. If I were interested in wind, heck, maybe I'd even be able to get a job chasing tornadoes, like that movie with Helen Hunt and the guy from that other movie where he was astronaut or whatever. If I liked dirt... heck, I don't know, maybe I'd be digging ditches and whistling a happy tune, but I'm pretty damn sure no one would mind. But just because I like fire, they lock me away.  
  
'Wellness Center' my ass. It's a nuthouse, is what it is, and I'm not a nut.  
  
I just like fire.  
  
It's not like I set homes on fire. Not like I set myself on fire... I'm not a roasted nut either. Ha ha. No, the only things I burned were abandoned warehouses. Heck, they were condemned, anyhow. What's the big deal?  
  
Fire, you see, is one of the primal energies of the world. It's also one of the elements, or so the ancient philosophers thought. You won't find it on the periodic table. Now, some might say that that's because of some vast conspiracy to cover up the truth of the universe, to claim that it's some big confusing place filled with albertium and strontium and whatnot, when all matter is actually just composed of the four true elements. Or is it five? No, that's only in that movie with the guy who was in the show with the blonde chick. In the real world, there were only four elements. Earth Wind and Fire, like the band, and Water, which for some reason was never made into a band. Because water's less interesting than the other elements, I reckon.  
  
I COULD argue that there was a conspiracy behind that claim that there were more elements, with funny names and atomic numbers and all that junk.  
  
I won't make that argument, though. I'm not a conspiracy nut.  
  
I won't go into the things I like about fire -- the way it purifies all it touches, the colors, the crackling noises it makes, any of that. I'm sure you don't care.  
  
You're probably more interested in hearing about Gretchen.  
  
There's another example of how life's not fair sometimes.  
  
If she and I met on some college campus, in say, the University Center, and got to chatting, and then dating or something, no one would mind. It would be wholesome, sweet, 'two cute kids falling for one another'... but because we're both patients at the Wellness Center (or were, at least, til the events of the past day) the caretakers make sure to keep an eye on us. I can't ask her out on a date... they won't let me out of the place. And we can't get any private time alone.  
  
They won't let us. 'Inappropriate behavior,' they'd call it, I'm sure. So what goes on in one center isn't allowed in another center. Is it any wonder I get confused about things?  
  
If you didn't meet Gretchen, she was what you'd call intriguing.  
  
Cute as a button, though a bit on the thin side. Okay, a lot on the thin side. And not all that cute, but she had that waifish, Wynona Ryder, goth chick, black hair and sunken eyes, I-need-a-hug sadness to her. (or is it Winona? Which one's the Judd?) First time I saw her, I fell for her, and fell hard.  
  
She was staring out the window --- as I learned later, the way she always does --- and just looking at the trees. I went over to talk to her, making a quick note in my head that Carl, the bull-necked orderly who hates my guts for no good reason, was watching me.  
  
I don't know word-for-word how the conversation went -- after all, this was months ago -- but it was something like this:  
  
Me: "Hi, how are you doing?"  
  
Her: "They're out there, in the shadows."  
  
Me: "Who?"  
  
Her: "Them. The things that dwell in darkness."  
  
Then she went on and on about these things, these creatures that she claims live in the dark and want nothing more than to kill people.  
  
Yeah, I know. Crazy. There ARE some nutsos here at the 'Wellness' Center, and I have to admit, the evidence was pretty strong that she was one of 'em.  
  
But she had that whole 'woman of mystery' thing going, so I was intrigued. And let's be honest, I've always dug girls who were a little on the squirrely side... plain jane types just never seemed that interesting, and they'd rarely sit down and talk with me anyhow.  
  
So I let her talk... let me tell ya, if I believed in creepy crawlies, she'd have scared the bejeezus out of me.  
  
She seemed so sad, and just needed someone to talk to apart from that Japanese guy who's her psychiatrist, Dr. Takoshi I think, and who doesn't really listen the way none of them really listen, he just watches her lips move and tries to make up what he thinks is wrong with her.  
  
She doesn't need that crap... she needs someone to listen.  
  
So the next time I saw her in the activity room, and I sat next to her, I saw that Carl was still there, keeping an eye on me.  
  
I talk to her, and she talks to me.  
  
She's a lonely gal, it turns out... no real friends at the center, no real desire to make friends either. But she doesn't mind me, and that's good enough. There aren't enough interesting people to talk to, apart from that guy who thinks he's Harry Truman and jerks off all the time, and he's just unpleasant to stand too close to if you get my drift.  
  
You'd think in a place full of supposedly crazy people, there would be more interesting people to talk to. But most of them are just as boring as 'sane' people are, in my expert opinion gleaned from the two years I've been here at the 'Wellness' Center.  
  
Or is that gleamed?  
  
They won't give me a dictionary, so forgive me if I get some of this confused. It's not that I'm uneducated... I went to high school, graduated in the top 10 percent of the class, and I would have started at a good local college if it hadn't been for that whole warehouse district incident.  
  
Ah, well, one man's urban renewal is another man's arson.  
  
Anyhow, Gretchen and I got to be kind of friendly. And it looked like it would stay only 'kind of', because Carl and some nurses he whispered to all the time were watching me like a hawk... well, like several hawks, actually. What did they think, I was just gonna whip it out and start chasing her around the room? I'm no Harry Truman.  
  
Gretchen's nice, but... what's the phrase I'm looking for? Shell-shocked. I think that's it. She seems to have all the sadness in the world, bundled up in one little, pretty-if-she-tried-on-makeup-once-in-awhile, package.  
  
I'm not bragging or anything, but I'm the only person she ever told the real reason why she was at the Wellness Center to.  
  
I can't tell you, of course... patient/patient confidentiality, you know.  
  
Well, since she's no longer a patient here, I can give you some of the superficials, but not the real details. Smoke, but no fire.  
  
Years ago, she and a friend of hers... I forget his name, but it was something from a baseball player, I think. Babe Ruth? No. Pete Rose? Maybe. Let's call him Pete, and if I'm remembering wrong, it won't matter anyway. The point is to tell you what got her unbalanced in the head, not give you the exact names and dates.  
  
Anyhow, Gretchen and Pete (?) went out in the woods with a camcorder and got hunted by "The Things That Dwell in the Darkness" (insert eerie music here).  
  
They hid in a basement, and a hand chased them around. I'm not making this up, and if she was, then she sure seemed sincere. A Hand. Like, five fingers... er, four fingers and a thumb, I should say, if there's a real difference, which I'm not sure of because I can't look up the definition of a finger because they won't give me a friggin' dictionary... and a palm, and the back of the hand whatever you call that, and a bit of the wrist, but then it was cut off beyond that. it was just a hand, and it was walking around like a spider, chasing them, and they ran out of the basement.  
  
And that's when the things in the woods got Pete (?). They made him go bad, like that movie with Linda Blair where her head spins around I guess, and he tried to kill Gretchen.  
  
And she had to chop him into little bits to save herself.  
  
The things, you see, lose a bit of their power when the people they are possessing are dismembered. It's more difficult for the 'deadites to focus their dark energies' or whatever. That's how Gretchen explained it to me.  
  
She took an old axe and cut her childhood friend to bits, while he flailed and screamed and mocked her.  
  
And once she'd done that, she scattered the pieces.  
  
And she cried. A lot. Until she stopped crying, and she claims that she hasn't cried since, and will never cry again.  
  
Poor kid. I tried to give her a hug then, but I could see Carl watching me, and waiting for a chance to bust me.  
  
He hates me. I don't know why. It's not like he owned the warehouses, or is it?  
  
Anyhow, Gretchen confided in me, and I felt pretty special. No one had ever confided in me before, not like that, and it seemed that Gretchen trusted me. Maybe even liked me, in a Love Story (but hopefully without either of us getting sick and croaking at the end) kind of way... tenuous, but if Carl and those damned nurses hadn't been around, we might have fallen in love and been married and living happily ever after.  
  
But that wasn't meant to be.  
  
Dr. Takoshi got concerned that since Gretchen was sharing so much with me, she wasn't telling him as much in the psychiatric sessions he had with her.  
  
They tried to separate us, but hey, it's a big activity center, it's not like they can keep two harmless patients from mingling a little, right?  
  
Then, two weeks ago, Gretchen gets all agitated.  
  
Dr. Takoshi was gone.  
  
He had decided to go and talk with the people back in Spiegel County (wherever that is, don't ask me because I don't know), the backwoods place where Gretchen and Pete (?) had gone and where only Gretchen had emerged.  
  
Dr. Takoshi wanted to find out what happened, and since Gretchen never told him the details she had shared with me, he didn't find out from her so he went to investigate on his own, like he was Quincy M.E. or something.  
  
Gretchen assumed he had gone to those woods and been snatched by the Things (eerie music), but for all we know he actually just went and found nothing and was spending his remaining time on vacation, doing whatever people do for fun near Spiegel County, wherever that is.  
  
Tennessee, I think. So maybe he went to Dollywood, or Nashville. Not that Dr. Takoshi seemed like a country music fan, but heck, maybe he likes gals with big boobs and went to Dollywood after all.  
  
But when I tried this line of reasoning on Gretchen, she wouldn't listen.  
  
She: "He's dead, I know it. He didn't have the proper respect for the forces, and they took him."  
  
Me: (insert above line of reasoning)  
  
She: (stares blankly, as if thinking I'm an idiot).  
  
And that brings us to yesterday.  
  
Or actually, last night.  
  
They let us stay up later than usual, because of a game on television, that I feigned interest in just so I could stay up later than usual, not because I actually give a flying flip about the game. But there were a few of us there, and Carl (staring at me as usual), and then I notice... her.  
  
Not Gretchen. A different her.  
  
Also real thin, but more like a model or something, dressed in fine clothes like Dana Scully and wearing mirrored sunglasses despite the fact that it was late at night and most of the hallways were darkened.  
  
She had long straight blonde hair, almost white, and she looked almost like porcelain. Real pale and elegant and austere.  
  
And she and Dr. Wingrave, a fat woman who wears her hornrimmed glasses on a little thin rope around her neck, were talking in the hallway outside the activity center.  
  
And then Gretchen joined them, clutching her suitcase, and then she started to leave with the thin blonde woman.  
  
I got up from my chair, and Carl told me to sit the f--- down (he cusses all the time, someone really should turn him over to some governing board for that and for being abusive to people, which he acts like he's going to be, though he'd never actually hit me I know he'd like to and that's close enough as far as I'm concerned).  
  
I ignore him and head out the door into the hallway.  
  
Gretchen looks back, and so does the pale woman with the sunglasses.  
  
"Goodbye, Billy," she (Gretchen, that is) says, with a hint of sadness and dare I suggest doomed romance in her voice.  
  
"What's going on?" I ask.  
  
The blonde thin woman looks through me as if I'm not even there. I think I saw one of her eyes glow a little bit under the glasses... I know it sounds crazy, but I'm not crazy, so trust me on this one, okay?.... and so I say, "Who the heck are you?"  
  
And I'm standing there defiantly, staring at this strange woman who's taking my friend away from me, and I kind of feel like it's a showdown even though neither of us has guns, at least I don't, but for all I know this woman might have one in her coat pocket, so maybe I shouldn't be so defiant. But I still am defiant, because I don't want them to take Gretchen away, and that's what they're doing.  
  
And just then Carl, finally able to apply the violence he's so desperately wanted to use on me all these months, comes out in the hallway and grabs me by the arm.  
  
He and the blonde woman exchange some words.  
  
I don't remember all the details... I was too busy studying Gretchen's face, trying to see if she was scared or being kidnapped or what was up, but her expression was stoic and somber but not fearful... but I think it was something like this:  
  
Carl: "Oh, it's you, Dr. Gantrey (or was it Gentry?). Sorry about Billy, I think he's got a bit of a crush on Gretchen is all."  
  
Blonde woman: "That's alright, Mr. Macy. I was just leaving."  
  
Carl: "Good luck with the treatments. Gretchen's a good kid."  
  
Blonde woman: "I know." (then, she turns her attention to me, and smirks). "Be seing you, Billy."  
  
Then Gretchen waved goodbye, and she and Blonde Woman walked down the dark hallway. Gretchen was wearing sneakers, so I barely heard her footsteps, but the blonde woman's high heels clicked loud and clear on the hallway tiles as she walked along. And that's the last I saw of them.  
  
I hope Gretchen comes back. I hope she's all better when she does, and she can sign to have me released, and we can go off together and get to know each other, and maybe go to college together or go skiing maybe. Or go to Hawaii, and visit a Volcano.  
  
I've always wanted to see a real volcano. I've only seem them in magazines that they no longer let me keep, and on television, and in that movie with the guy who was chasing Harrison Ford and that chick who's dating the other chick who had the sitcom.  
  
But I don't know if I'll ever see Gretchen again, same as she didn't know if she'd ever see Dr. Takoshi again.  
  
So here I am, back surrounded by the dull, dull people I live with here at the 'Wellness' Center, with no one to talk to but Harry Truman, and even he's getting a bit redundant nowadays.  
  
Occasionally I look at the shadows, or glance around at the darkness to see if there's anything lurking there, waiting to pounce and possess me or kill me or eat me or whatever.  
  
And I don't see 'em.  
  
I'm not saying that Gretchen was crazy necessarily, though of course she was, but let's face it.  
  
Anyhow, if she was really worried about things in the shadows, I'd be glad to come with her, and light torches and follow her into the woods, and shine the light from that fire to dispell the shadows.  
  
Because that's what it takes, light. Light to illuminate the darkness. And fire makes light.  
  
So what's wrong with fire, I ask you?  
  
End. 


End file.
